Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/260

248 Over the gate which leads to the Rasp-house, is an ill-executed wooden figure of Chastisement, brandishing a whip in her hand, with two offenders chained at her feet, and various instruments of punishment and torture within her reach. The inscription in Latin beneath expresses the necessity and virtue of coercing and punishing the criminal.

The Spin-house, or Bridewell, for the correction of female offenders, is an institution similar to the Rasp-house, and contains an equal number of prisoners, or I believe generally rather more. The employments of the women vary according to their abilities, or the pleasure of the magistrates. Disagreeable tasks, as picking oakham, &c. are assigned to the most profligate and hardened offenders, while those who have been committed for slighter causes are employed on needle-work. The superintendance of the Spin-house is properly entrusted to a matron,